NBA
Rudy Gobert Contract: Only 1 NBA Team Is Desperate Enough to Take the Controversial $131 Million Center
Tim Crean started writing about sports in 2016 and ed Sportscasting in 2021. He excels with his versatile coverage of the NFL and soccer landscape, as well as his expertise breaking down sports media, which stems from his many years ing podcasts before they were even cool and countless hours spent listening to Mike & The Mad Dog and The Dan Patrick Show, among other programs. As a longtime self-professed sports junkie who even played DII lacrosse at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, New York, Tim loves reading about all the latest sports news every day and considers it a dream to write about sports professionally. He's a lifelong Buffalo Bills fan from Western New York who mistakenly thought, back in the early '90s, that his team would be in the Super Bowl every year. He started following European soccer — with a Manchester City focus — in the early 2000s after spending far too much time playing FIFA. When he's not enjoying a round of golf or coaching youth soccer and flag football, Tim likes reading the work of Bill Simmons, Tony Kornheiser, Chuck Klosterman, and Tom Wolfe.
Get to know Tim Crean betterPublished10 Apr 2023
The Brooklyn Nets with Ben Simmons.
The Rudy Gobert contract
When the Timberwolves traded for the Rudy Gobert contract, they thought they were getting the six-time All-Defensive team, four-time All-NBA, three-time All-Star, and three-time Defensive Player of the Year from the Jazz.
What they got was a player who jammed up the offense, stifled Karl-Anthony Towns, and averaged less than blocks per game (1.4) for the first time since his 45-game rookie season.
And the price they paid for Gobert was astronomical.
Minnesota gave up first-round picks in 2023, 2025, 2027, and 2029, a 2026 first-round pick swap, Malik Beasley, Patrick Beverley, Leandro Bolmaro, Jarred Vanderbilt, and 2022 No. 22 overall draft pick Walker Kessler.
All this is bad. But what’s worst is that the Rudy Gobert contract is virtually untradeable.
In 2020, Gobert signed a five-year, $205,000,002 contract extension with the Jazz, making him the highest-paid center in NBA history at $41,000,000 per year.
After the 2022-23 season debacle, the 30-year-old Frenchman still has two years with a player option (that he will 100% pick up) left on the Rudy Gobert contract. That means he’ll make $41,000,000 in 2023-24, $43,827,587 in 2024-35, and $46,655,173 in 2025-26.
While this seems like a contract that no team in the NBA would take, there is one franchise desperate enough (and with a contract terrible enough) to make a Rudy Gobert trade this offseason.
A Rudy Gobert trade for Ben Simmons: Who says no?
The only nine-figure deal in the NBA right now than the Rudy Gobert contract is the Brooklyn Nets’ Ben Simmons contract.
Simmons continued his downward spiral this season, averaging career lows on points (6.9), assists (6.1), rebounds (6.3), and steals (1.3). He also went 0-of-2 on 3-point attempts. Still, the Ben Simmons contract has two years and $78.1 million remaining on it.
And while the Nets shut Simmons down for the season after playing just 42 games due to “back and knee injuries,” it seems to most observers that he’s simply not interested in playing NBA basketball.
The whole Simmons situation is much worse (and a bigger waste of money) than the Gobert situation.
Maybe this offseason, some team would take the Rudy Gobert contract if the Timberwolves were able to attach a first-round pick to it. However, the T’wolves now have no first-round picks to trade until 2031.
The only team desperate enough and with a big enough headache of its own is the Nets. Brooklyn could send Simmons and a pick they got in the Kevin Durant, or Kyrie Irving deals to Minnesota for the French center in a Rudy Gobert trade.
For the Nets, they get a veteran center in this Rudy Gobert trade who makes more sense for their lineup than the Timberwolves’. On the flip side, the T’wolves get out of this big-money deal a year sooner, and maybe out of the East Coast spotlight, Simmons can turn things around.
So, if Minnesota calls Brooklyn and offers this deal, who says no?
